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2007: ASCILITE 2007 Conference Proceedings

 

 

 

 

The proceedings of the 2007 ASCILITE Conference.

R. J. Atkinson, C. McBeath, S. K. A. Soong, & C. Cheers (Eds) (2007).

ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning.

Proceedings ASCILITE 2007.

Centre for Educational Development, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

December 2-5, 2007.

Published: 30 November 2007

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

  • Collaborative learning by modelling: Observations in an online setting

    Peter Reimann, Kate Thompson, Miriam Weinel

    A custom-designed combination of a chat tool and a wiki tool was used to engage postgraduate education students online in system dynamics modelling tasks. The purpose of the course was to familiarise students with core concepts of the complexity sciences, and to introduce them to modelling complex systems as a means to research processes of learning and organisational change. The rationale for the online course as well as the technology employed is described. Observations from two student teams using the Stella™ modelling software while cooperating in the online learning environment are reported, both with respect to their modelling activities as well as their team coordination behavior. We conclude with an identification of the main advantages of learning about a difficult subject area collaboratively and net-based.

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  • Designing quality e-learning environments in higher education

    Lou Siragusa, Kathryn C. Dixon, Robert Dixon

    With the ever-increasing integration of online learning (or e-learning) into university courses, there is strong need for practical guidelines and recommendations to facilitate the development and delivery of pedagogically effective e-earning environments. An investigation by Siragusa (2005) examined factors which make for effective instructional design principles and learning strategies for higher education students studying within these learning environments. Surveys were administered to students and lecturers in Western Australian universities which revealed numerous areas of students’ e-learning experiences which they had perceived as being successful and those needing improvements. This paper presents a model containing 24 sets of recommendations that were developed from the study’s survey findings. The 24 recommendations accommodate the varying pedagogical needs of learners as well as modes of course delivery. For each recommendation, a pedagogical dimension is presented to illustrate the pedagogical needs and instructional requirements. These 24 dimensions, which are grouped within nine main sections, highlight the decisions which need to be made during the instructional analysis, design, delivery and evaluation phases of e-learning environments in higher education in order to optimise their pedagogical quality.

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  • What do university students expect from teachers using an LMS?

    Caroline H. Steel

    In October 2006, a survey was conducted at an Australian university that was aimed at gaining student feedback on future and current IT services. Two questions were specifically targeted at finding out about students’ use of the university’s central Learning Management System (LMS). The LMS being used at that time was Blackboard (Bb) version 6.3. While one question asked whether or not students used the system (N=6,724), the second question invited them to comment on what they liked and disliked about the LMS (N=4,538). The latter question elicited rich qualitative data that was analysed using two methods. Initial themes were noted through a manual analysis and then data was run through a software program called Leximancer. This program analysed the conceptual structure of the data. While some themes related to student preferences around the LMS itself, a great deal of the data was linked to the ways the system was being used by university teachers. Student expectations around teacher use of the LMS form the focus of this paper and consequential challenges and future directions for staff development are considered.

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  • Design features of an e-mentoring system for the health professions: Choosing to learn in partnership

    Sarah Stewart, Catherine McLoughlin

    In the past decade there has been a phenomenal growth of online mentoring websites and opportunities within a wide variety of professions, yet few peer reviewed publications to date have addressed the linkage to ICT and how it supports such systems. The purpose of this article is to address this gap in our knowledge by: proposing that the Internet and social software applications can provide a viable medium for enabling mentoring within defined roles, and communication channels for practitioners to explore online mentoring. Past research has found that scaffolding functions of mentoring (psychosocial and vocational), can be provided by ICT applications mediated by a mentor. We extend past research by assessing the relative value of technology applications to support virtual mentoring by describing a mentoring system has been designed for health professionals employed by a health care organisation. The initial observations indicate that e-mentoring relationships require additional support and education in the beginning stages of development. By providing specific research frameworks that underpin successful e-mentoring schemes internationally, we propose future research directions for e-mentoring supported through ICT, with its associated opportunities and challenges.

    Read article: Design features of an e-mentoring system for the health professions: Choosing to learn in partnership

  • Tools and techniques for scenario based e-learning for New Zealand tertiary students: Prototype to adoption

    Terry M. Stewart

    This paper describes the development and delivery of an e-learning project whose outputs were made available to all government-funded tertiary institutions in New Zealand. PBL- Interactive is an authoring and delivery tool for scenario-based learning and Challenge FRAP is workbook software which can both guide and capture process in student assignments. The existence of well-developed prototypes of these programs meant that important support material (examples, guides, tutorials etc.), along with awareness and training workshops before and after the project, could be undertaken within the short timeframe of 18 months. The project fulfilled all its objectives, but barriers remain to wide- scale uptake within the recipient institutions. These constraints to adoption, which are likely to be relevant to many e-learning initiatives, are discussed.

    Read article: Tools and techniques for scenario based e-learning for New Zealand tertiary students: Prototype to adoption

  • Using technology to foster reflection in higher education

    Katrina Strampel, Ron Oliver

    Technology-facilitated learning is quickly becoming mainstream in most higher education institutions. Simultaneously, although not necessarily related, tertiary administrators are calling for students exiting university to exhibit the capacity for reflection and higher order thinking. Instructors, therefore, are faced with two challenges: implementing technology and increasing reflective learning. This paper argues that technology can be used to help instructors in this feat. Technology-facilitated learning offers many opportunities for students to engage in reflective tasks, if implemented properly. Ensuring conditions for promoting reflection, as outlined in the literature, are present, will yield successful changeovers for instructors beginning to use technology, instead of traditional face-to-face methods, to foster high levels of reflection and deep learning in their classrooms.

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  • Authentic assessment strategies in problem based learning

    Gillian Xiao-Lian Tai, May Chan Yuen

    Problem-based learning (PBL) uses real world problems and tasks as the initiative objective in constructing knowledge and enhancing learning experience. This paper looks into authentic assessment strategies in problem-based learning using an interactive multimedia project as a subject of investigation. Through the use of a range of authentic assessments like process assessment which contains of process assessment (consists of students’ self reflection, peer’s evaluation and task completion reports); content assessment (consists of pretest and posttest); together with portfolio assessment, this paper outlined strategies that have worked, as well as those that have not in a PBL setting. The collective data showed positive feedback towards learning tasks including problem solving skills, team collaboration and knowledge enhancement.

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  • ReLOAMS: Towards a community authored, reusable learning objects management system

    Yin-Leng Theng, Dian Saputra Saputra, Schubert Foo Shou-Boon, Wei Boon Gan, Jaganathan Raghavan, Pattabiraman Devi

    As e-learning environments become more popular, many studies have been proposed to provide adaptive environments offering learners and educators customised courses for more effective learning and course construction. Some solutions are aimed at helping learners, while others are aimed at helping educators and course designers/developers. However, a serious lack of conceptual clarity of definitions and uses of learning objects, could have resulted in design and usability problems in current e-learning systems. This paper describes on-going work in developing ReLOAMS, a Reusable Learning Objects Authoring and Management System, prototype to address the seemingly lack of reusability of LOs in current e-learning systems. Through shared workspaces (or group workspaces) for learners who have similar learning interests to use, share and rate LOs, this paper describes the design rationale and philosophy of ReLOAMS, being implemented to promote an environment supporting community-authored and rating of learning objects. The paper then describes the systems architecture, and development of ReLOAMS concluding with recommendations and implications for the design of e-learning systems.

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  • Using blogs as design primitives in implementing collaborative e-learning systems

    Alexei Tretiakov, Roland Kaschek, Eyas El-Qawasmeh

    We propose to use blogs as design primitives to enable interaction in e-learning systems. As a proof of concept, we implement a prototype of a concept mapping tool employing blogs attached to concepts to enable students to discuss these concepts in-place.

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  • Student adoption of web based video conferencing software: A comparison of three student discipline groups

    Peter Vitartas, Nicola Jayne, Allan Ellis, Stephen Rowe

    This paper asks the question – how do differences in year of study and subject studied affect the likelihood of students adopting a new learning environment? Data from a study of students’ intention to adopt a Web conferencing environment is examined by the subjects in which they were enrolled. The results show that students’ perceptions of using the environment, as measured by a self-efficacy scale and motivation were related however there were few differences between the cohorts in other factors that influenced their intention to adopt the new environment.

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  • Factors in the deployment of a learning management system at the University of the South Pacific

    Robert Whelan, Dhiraj Bhartu

    This paper describes how a new Learning Management System (LMS) was introduced into the University of the South Pacific with the aim of improving teaching and learning. The development process from test and selection of the platform through to project planning, gathering of political support within the institution, technical factors, the design and roll out of training, the impact and consequences, the growth and future prospects of the platform are discussed, with a focus on the university’s redesigned online law program. The paper concludes with the main lessons learned, emphasising the point that the process was characterised by a lack of a formal process or deployment model per se.

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  • When words fail: A case for multimodality in e-learning

    Julie Willems

    Research conducted to study the impact of learning styles in e-learning environments examined three cohorts (undergraduate e-learners, graduate e-learners, and educators working in electronic educational environments in higher education) to identify the impact of learning styles in e-learning design. Quantitative data was gathered from the research cohorts through the Index of Learning Styles (Felder & Soloman, 1991, 1994). In addition, qualitative responses were collected from the participants using open-ended questions via a survey questionnaire. Of the quantitative results, all three cohorts rated a moderately strong preference for visual communication over text (verbal or written communication). The results are consistent with other research findings (Felder & Spurlin, 2005), and they suggest that, at times, words do fail. These results support a case for multimodality in e- learning environments. This goes beyond situating vast chunks of text in e-learning environments and towards the inclusion of various forms of visual communication in e- learning designs. Further, it is argued, that at a time when various forms of historically text- reliant communications media are shifting towards visually inclusive constructs, that this adoption within academia is also socio-historically appropriate.

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  • Perpetual connectivity: Lecture recordings and portable media players

    Jocasta Williams, Michael Fardon

    Using portable media players to enhance and support teaching and learning activities in higher education is becoming an increasingly common practice. With a growing understanding of the pedagogical possibilities of podcasting, the availability of low-cost MP3 players and the arrival of convenient delivery environments such as Apple’s iTunes U, many universities are considering how to appropriately harness this technology to support their teaching priorities and the learning needs of their students. One of the most popular current uses of portable media players for educational purposes centres around the practice of recording and disseminating lectures. Through enabling students to use portable media players to store and playback digital copies of lectures, the intention is to make the lecture format more accessible for students and support student mobility and flexibility in their learning activities. This paper looks at student use of portable media players for accessing lecture recordings and evaluates some of the associated practical and pedagogical implications.

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Showing 66–78 of 127 articles